“I owe it to you all to give you clarity on the political reality in the United States, and to state the fair demand from my country’s people in concrete terms,” Mattis said.“America will meet its responsibilities, but if your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to the alliance, each of your capitals needs to show its support for our common defense.”“No longer can the American taxpayer carry a disproportionate share of the defense of western values,” Mattis said. “Americans cannot care more for your children’s security than you do. Disregard for military readiness demonstrates a lack of respect for ourselves, for the alliance, and for the freedoms we inherited, which are now clearly threatened.”

- RT

Ed: what the fuck did he say?

Fuckin' nothin'. If that was concrete, Manhattan will be turning to dust any time now.

Mad Dog knows the nationalists, particularly Brits, have got the Eurozone all frothy and in a major lather about Russians so that means only one thing to a businessman: it's time for some extortion. Shake them down for some cash for something America would do anyway because it gets off on it.

Ed: does he have anything more to this threat than using Crimea as proof Russia wants to invade Europe to make everyone wear grey uniforms?

Nada. Zip.

It gets better with that zero since he's trying to trump up the market at the same time by refusing military cooperation with Russia.

“We are not in a position right now to collaborate on a military level, but our political leaders will engage and try to find common ground or a way forward so that Russia, living up to its commitment, can return to a partnership of sorts here with NATO,” Mattis said."Russia's aggressive actions have violated international law and are destabilizing," he added.Before the US is willing to work with its former Cold War rival, "Russia is going to have to prove itself first," Mattis said. "The point about Russia is they have to live by international law just like we expect all nations on this planet to do."

Yep, it looks that way. It's just more toward sustaining the endless war but they have already made it so complicated their kit doesn't work anymore. NATO is sending some naval vessels to the Black Sea but Britain won't because their high-tech warships breakdown in warm water (dead serious). It's the same thing with the F-35 with an ongoing stream of failures in integrating all of the systems. There are more examples with American Navy warships breaking down but the general point of all of this is FAIL-SAFE depends entirely on the kit working perfectly because what a bitch if we get smoked in a nuke war due to an equipment malfunction.

Here's the Rockhouse Mad Dog Theory of the Day and this is based on the Rockhouse required reading of "The Mote in God's Eye" with the Moties who were space aliens with incredible building skills but they designed a new version of something each time any of them built one. That's your F-35 design since there are Moties all over the place building all the bits, none of which were much like the previous bits, and there are the Master Moties who supervise sticking all the bits together in yet some new way to make aircraft and ... what do you know ... it doesn't work.

Ed: it's simple Luddism if everything is regarded as too complicated.

It's easy to make things complicated; it's reduction which takes the major thought.